the third republic, becoming a life senator in 1875. His brother Edmond Motier de La Fayette (1818–1890) shared his political opinions. He was one of the secretaries of the Constituent Assembly, and a member of the senate from 1876 to 1888.
See Mémoires historiques et pièces authentiques sur M. de La Fayette pour servir à l’histoire des révolutions (Paris, An II., 1793–1794); B. Sarrans, La Fayette et la Révolution de 1830, histoire des choses et des hommes de Juillet (Paris, 1834); Mémoires, correspondances et manuscrits de La Fayette, published by his family (6 vols., Paris, 1837–1838); Regnault Warin, Mémoires pour servir à la vie du général La Fayette (Paris, 1824); A. Bardoux, La jeunesse de La Fayette (Paris, 1892); Les Dernières années de La Fayette (Paris, 1893); E. Charavaray, Le Général La Fayette (Paris, 1895); A. Levasseur, La Fayette en Amérique 1824 (Paris, 1829); J. Cloquet, Souvenirs de la vie privée du général La Fayette (Paris, 1836); Max Büdinger, La Fayette in Oesterreich (Vienna, 1898); and M. M. Crawford, The Wife of Lafayette (1908); Bayard Tuckerman, Life of Lafayette (New York, 1889); Charlemagne Tower, The Marquis de La Fayette in the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1895).
LA FAYETTE, MARIE-MADELEINE PIOCHE DE LA VERGNE, Comtesse de (1634–1692), French novelist, was baptized in Paris, on the 18th of March 1634. Her father, Marc Pioche de la Vergne, commandant of Havre, died when she was sixteen, and her mother seems to have been more occupied with her own than her daughter’s interests. Mme de la Vergne married in 1651 the chevalier de Sévigné, and Marie thus became connected with Mme de Sévigné, who was destined to be a lifelong friend. She studied Greek, Latin and Italian, and inspired in one of her tutors, Gilles de Ménage, an enthusiastic admiration which he expressed in verse in three or four languages. Marie married in 1655 François Motier, comte de La Fayette. They lived on the count’s estates in Auvergne, according to her own account (in a letter to Ménage) quite happily; but after the birth of her two sons her husband disappeared so effectually that it was long supposed that he died about 1660, though he really lived until 1683. Mme de La Fayette had returned to Paris, and about 1665 contracted an intimacy with the duc de la Rochefoucauld, then engaged on his Maximes. The constancy and affection that marked this liaison on both sides justified it in the eyes of society, and when in 1680 La Rochefoucauld died Mme de La Fayette received the sincerest sympathy. Her first novel, La Princesse de Montpensier, was published anonymously in 1662; Zayde appeared in 1670 under the name of J. R. de Segrais; and in 1678 her masterpiece, La Princesse de Clèves, also under the name of Segrais. The history of the modern novel of sentiment begins with the Princesse de Clèves. The interminable pages of Mlle de Scudéry with the Précieuses and their admirers masquerading as Persians or ancient Romans had already been discredited by the burlesques of Paul Scarron and Antoine Furetière. It remained for Mme de La Fayette to achieve the more difficult task of substituting something more satisfactory than the disconnected episodes of the roman comique. This she accomplished in a story offering in its shortness and simplicity a complete contrast to the extravagant and lengthy romances of the time. The interest of the story depends not on incident but on the characters of the personages. They act in a perfectly reasonable way and their motives are analysed with the finest discrimination. No doubt the semi-autobiographical character of the material partially explains Mme de La Fayette’s refusal to acknowledge the book. Contemporary critics, even Mme de Sévigné amongst them, found fault with the avowal made by Mme de Clèves to her husband. In answer to these criticisms, which her anonymity prevented her from answering directly, Mme de La Fayette wrote her last novel, the Comtesse de Tende.
The character of her work and her history have combined to give an impression of melancholy and sweetness that only represents one side of her character, for a correspondence brought to light comparatively recently showed her as the acute diplomatic agent of Jeanne de Nemours, duchess of Savoy, at the court of Louis XIV. She had from her early days also been intimate with Henrietta of England, duchess of Orleans, under whose immediate direction she wrote her Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre, which only appeared in 1720. She wrote memoirs of the reign of Louis XIV., which, with the exception of two chapters, for the years 1688 and 1689 (published at Amsterdam, 1731), were lost through her son’s carelessness. Madame de La Fayette died on the 25th of May 1692.
See Sainte-Beuve, Portraits de femmes; the comte d’Haussonville, Madame de La Fayette (1891), in the series of Grands écrivains français; M. de Lescure’s notice prefixed to an edition of the Princesse de Clèves (1881); and a critical edition of the historical memoirs by Eugène Asse (1890). See also L. Rea, Marie Madeleine, comtesse de La Fayette (1908).
LAFAYETTE, a city and the county-seat of Tippecanoe
county, Indiana, U.S.A., situated at the former head of navigation
on the Wabash river, about 64 m. N.W. of Indianapolis.
Pop. (1900) 18,116, of whom 2266 were foreign-born; (1910
census) 20,081. It is served by the Chicago, Indianapolis
& Louisville, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis,
the Lake Erie & Western, and the Wabash railways, and by
the Terre Haute, Indianapolis & Eastern (electric), and the Fort
Wayne & Wabash Valley (electric) railways. The river is not
now navigable at this point. Lafayette is in the valley of the
Wabash river, which is sunk below the normal level of the plain,
the surrounding heights being the walls of the Wabash basin.
The city has an excellent system of public schools, a good public
library, two hospitals, the Wabash Valley Sanitarium (Seventh
Day Adventist), St Anthony’s Home for old people and two
orphan asylums. It is the seat of Purdue University, a co-educational,
technical and agricultural institution, opened in 1874
and named in honour of John Purdue (1802–1876), who gave
it $150,000. This university is under state control, and received
the proceeds of the Federal agricultural college grant of 1862
and of the second Morrill Act of 1890; in connexion with it
there is an agricultural experiment station. It had in 1908–1909
180 instructors, 1900 students, and a library of 25,000
volumes and pamphlets. Just outside the city is the State
Soldiers’ Home, where provision is also made for the wives and
widows of soldiers; in 1908 it contained 553 men and 700
women. The city lies in the heart of a rich agricultural region,
and is an important market for grain, produce and horses.
Among its manufactures are beer, foundry and machine shop
products (the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville railway has
shops here), straw board, telephone apparatus, paper, wagons,
packed meats, canned goods, flour and carpets; the value of
the factory product increased from $3,514,276 in 1900 to
$4,631,415 in 1905, or 31.8%. The municipality owns its water works.
Lafayette is about 5 m. N.E. of the site of the ancient Wea (Miami) Indian village known as Ouiatanon, where the French established a post about 1720. The French garrison gave way to the English about 1760; the stockade fort was destroyed during the conspiracy of Pontiac, and was never rebuilt. The headquarters of Tecumseh and his brother, the “Prophet,” were established 7 m. N. of Lafayette near the mouth of the Tippecanoe river, and the settlement there was known as the “Prophet’s Town.” Near this place, and near the site of the present village of Battle Ground (where the Indiana Methodists now have a summer encampment and a camp meeting in August), was fought on the 7th of November 1811 the battle of Tippecanoe, in which the Indians were decisively defeated by Governor William Henry Harrison, the whites losing 188 in killed and wounded and the Indians about an equal number. The battle ground is owned by the state; in 1907 the state legislature and the United States Congress each appropriated $12,500 for a monument, which took the form of a granite shaft 90 ft. high. The first American settlers on the site of Lafayette appeared about 1820, and the town was laid out in 1825, but for many years its growth was slow. The completion of the Wabash and Erie canal marked a new era in its development, and in 1854 Lafayette was incorporated.
LA FERTÉ, the name of a number of localities in France,
differentiated by agnomens. La Ferté Imbault (department of
Loir-et-Cher) was in the possession of Jacques d’Étampes
(1590–1668), marshal of France and ambassador in England,
